Let It Go

Downsizing your Way to A Richer, Happier Life

In an African convent, four nuns and an unidentified fifth woman are brutally murdered, and the death of the unknown woman is covered up by the local police. A year later in Sweden, Inspector Kurt Wallander is baffled and appalled by two strange murders. Holger Eriksson, a retired car dealer and bird watcher, is impaled on sharpened bamboo poles in a ditch behind his secluded home, while the body of a missing florist is discovered strangled and tied to a tree. The only clues Wallander has to go on are a skull, a diary, and a photo of three men. What ensues is a case that will test Wallander's strength and patience, for in order to solve these murders he will need to uncover their elusive connection to the earlier unsolved murder in Africa of the fifth woman.

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There are many books on the simplify-your-life movement out right now, but what was especially interesting about this one was the exploration of the psychology of why we keep stuff - not just from the perspective of "I might need it" or "guilt because it was a gift/heirloom," but how it represents our past selves or our possible selves, and how that keeps us from truly being our present self.

Summary

It’s SPRING! Happy lambs bouncing, robins and chickadees singing, tulips and hyacinths blooming, yard sale signs replicating at the speed of light…
Wait, what?
If it’s Spring, it’s yard sale season. Which means decluttering, which means (most likely) facing an unwieldly amount of stuff in one’s basement, garage, spare rooms and junk drawers that just needs to GO. And if the KonMari* method seems too forbidding then pick up Peter Walsh’s newest book Let It Go to help get the decluttering/downsizing purge started.
A follow-up to his previous book, the best-selling It’s All Too Much, Walsh focuses on overcoming those obstacles that keep us from getting rid of the stuff in our lives – the difficulties of not enough time, or feelings of loss and change, or family dynamics (oy). He instead suggests reframing this process as fulfilling, a celebration, a reflective time of renewal. Put like that, even downsizing a beloved and mourned family member’s possessions can feel rewarding, not daunting. Life isn’t about stuff, he says, but there is room for treasure – it just can’t all be treasure, and it’s ok to let objects go.
What makes Walsh’s book a little different is that he really emphasizes the introspective, mindful examination of why we become so attached to our things, and challenges us to think about who we might be without it all. It isn’t as scary as it sounds, and Walsh includes helpful exercises to assist in these self-scrutinies. He notes, with multiple examples from real life that those who follow this process - once the emotional element is examined – feel their lives are freer and their minds at peace. “It’s human nature for big changes [like downsizing and decluttering] to bring conflicted feelings,” Walsh writes. But it’s also ok to let go of “the clutter that blocks doors to somewhere better, the obstacles that hold you back… Let yourself go forward to somewhere better.”
Bring on that yard sale… and find your copy of Let It Go by Peter Walsh at http://spl.bibliocommons.com
*KonMari method as described in Marie Kondo’s The Life Changing Magic in Tidying Up.